Crafting fail

Today, I attempted to make my first ever self binding blanket:

What in the world?!??! LOL!!!!

 

 I have been wanting to learn how to make one of these for years, and finally found a tutorial I [thought] I could understand here at Megan Poulton Designs. It's a convoluted way to sew a blanket, but I think everything was going fine until I tried to miter the corners, which you do on the interior. Then when I turned the whole thing inside out, they either wanted to pop up or down.

If you've been following my blog for a while, you might already know of my arch nemesis, mitered corners, which I can't sew to save my life. I thought I'd finally conquer today, but I guess not! It's a good thing I was trying my first one on fabric I didn't really care about...

This is what it looks like when I try to lay it flat. If it wasn't so funny, I'd probably be upset!!! Ha!!

Looks like I inadvertently made a big gusset. I could turn this into a huge floor pillow if it wasn't in baby boy fabric...maybe I could sew a separate cover? Hmmmm..

I might have been able to unpick the corners and try again, but I already cut off the extra fabric (because I'm a genius). I guess I'll go practice on some scraps and try all over again!

 Just wanted to end with this pic I took this afternoon because (unlike my blanket) Luke is beautiful and precious and perfect. 

America needs to take note

Do you know what is lacking in America??? Good drama TV, that's what. Why are we stuck with STUPID reality TV (I never thought the fad would have lasted this long) while the British Commonwealth churns out Masterpiece Theatre material?! Maybe I'm just too snooty. But seriously, though!

Granted, we have been blessed with comedies like Seinfeld, Scrubs and The Big Bang Theory, which are genuinely funny and their writing always seems fresh. I will probably be 90 years old and still watching those reruns.

But raise your hand if you're a fan of these two new Masterpiece series:

Just.....swoon.....

We just finished the Season 2 finale last Sunday of Emmy Award winning Downton Abbey, which has been airing on Masterpiece Classic on PBS the past couple of months. And now we have to wait and wait and wait until they film Season 3 so we can find out what happens next!! It's turn of the century English drama with the intrigues of rich country aristocrats and the intrigues of the poor working class who serve them in one show. The whole ensemble is top notch, and the sets and costumes are gorgeous. That's "Matthew" and "Mary" in the picture above. Their chemistry alone is worth tuning in for. 

Season 1 is available on Netflix, and both seasons are available to watch online here at pbs.org (but full episodes will only be available there for 8 more days!!). Even Mark really got into this series. It's not quite as girlified as Jane Austen stuff is, but it's in the same spirit. Excellent.

Sherlock is BBC series (running as part of Masterpiece Mystery on PBS)  that's a re-imagining of classic Sherlock Holmes stories, set in modern London. There's only been three episodes thus far, but each one is movie length, and they're fantastic. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Sherlock, who is as cocky and brainy and socially inept as ever, and Martin Freeman is his loveable, long suffering doctor sidekick. They make a great pair. You can watch online here on pbs.org as well. New episodes will air in May! (I think you can already find Season 2 videos floating around online.)

And SPEAKING OF MARTIN FREEMAN!

I can't believe I have not mentioned this yet on the blog. (You probably already are as hyped as I am.......or maybe not.......depends on your personal geek quotient.)

 The Hobbit!!!!!!!

Freeman is starring as Bilbo Baggins in Part I of the adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit--my favorite book ever. An Unexpected Journey comes out on December 14th (who wants to come to the midnight showing!?!), and Mark and I are counting down the days. Peter Jackson is directing again and Sir Ian McKellan (Gandalf) and some of the old gang from The Lord of the Rings will be back, too. Oh, and Benedict Cumberbatch (a.k.a. Sherlock, who I just mentioned) is doing the voice of Smaug! How awesome is that?! Feed your curiosity with this blog with updates on the filming of the movie. :D

The Hobbit was written before The Lord of the Rings and is actually geared more towards children, so it's lighter and funnier but is a heck of an adventure story. Love it, love it, love it.

Check out this trailer and tell me if it does not get you excited for this movie:

What 65 lbs. of rice will get you

So, I have a couple of goals this year: to spend less money and to de-stash my fabric stash. This means a lot of handmade gifts. Remember how I said I wanted to make some more rice bags for Christmas this year? Well, I wasn't joking.

 I made two dozen! Here's the empty bags--really simple rectangles--just using up a lot of scraps I had.

This particular crafting delusion of grandeur started when I needed some rice bags right away. My niece Amber, who is in China teaching English, didn't expect to be completely without heat in the school where she lives with her roommates, and they are freezing their little heinies off every night. It would cost the same for me to ship six rice bags as it would one, so I went ahead and whipped up these for them:

They do have a microwave, so all they need to do is heat these for a minute and a half and they'll be toasty warm.

Then I figured I'd send a few to my cousins Brent and Amber Peterson and their son Stephen:

 They have been at St. Jude's hospital in Memphis for the past four months having an absolutely miserable time while Stephen fights brain cancer (which has since cropped up in his pelvis as well). I thought some rice bags might be nice and comforting. To read more about their day to day journey, click here.

The rest of them....welllll....one thing led to another and I made new ones for me and the kids.....then for my visiting teachers, girls I visit teach, the ladies I serve with in the RS presidency, my grandma and my in-laws. It feels good to have those Christmas presents already done.
10 months ahead of schedule!!

I only made two of them the fancy compartmentalized way (tutorial here), since they take extra fabric and effort. 

 

Luke wanted to help fill all the bags with rice. I can tell you that the process goes 10x faster and neater without a 2-year old "assisting" you...sigh...

 Finished dimensions of compartmentalized bag: 8 1/2 by 15 inches, with lines sewn every 3 inches. Adult sized bag: 11x10 inches. Child sized bag: 8 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches. 

 (When I cut out the bags, they were 1/2 to 1 inch bigger all around.)

These can be filled with  uncooked rice, dried beans or dried corn. I know my folks made a bunch with dried feed corn they probably got at IFA or something. We're in a ranching community so that stuff's not hard to come by (although I completely forgot and just bought 20 lb. bags of rice at Walmart...).

 

Madelyn has used her new bag two or three times a day since I finished it. It's great for warming up after you play in the snow, after you get out of the bath, or to snuggle with as you go to sleep. It's great for aches and cramps and can be frozen to use on sore muscles, too.
Not bad, huh!

PS. Once I am finished de-stashing my fabric stash, do you know what that means??? I get to buy NEW FABRIC! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...

Snow slide

 

You know, it's a good thing that Mark likes snow and does stuff like this for the kids, because all I can be counted on is to show up for two minutes outside to take pictures.

  Luke mostly preferred to just eat snow off the driveway.

 ♥♥♥

Crazy for coconut

So, I've been in the mood for warm weather lately. Out of nowhere, we got another 4-5 inches of snow today. As if I wasn't grumpy enough already this morning, (like I am every Sunday morning...), I got snow in my shoes walking up to the church after we'd nearly slid off the road.

Cue Dove chocolates*
 *Of course, when wouldn't there be an occasion to cue Dove chocolates??

Oh heck yes!!!

These were like a little bit of tropical nirvana today. They're big and fat and have a creamy, truffle-y coconut center (made with real coconut oil) that is not only super caloric but super delicious. I got the bag on sale for $3.50 (normally $4.99 with the Easter candy) but it was totally worth the splurge. Less than a trip to Hawaii, anyway.

Speaking of, I first discovered sticky rice when I went to Hawaii with my family when I was 15, and if there is manna from heaven, that's got to be it. I spent the next decade pining over it and finally figured out how to make it myself last year.

If you can get your hands on some sushi rice like this:

(Which I found at Smith's, or you can use Hinode Silver Pearl, found at Walmart, or any high quality shorter grain rice.)

...then the way you prepare it to be truly sticky is to rinse all the starch off the uncooked rice till the water runs clear (which washes away the water soluble vitamins, but whatevs....) and then soak it in hot water for 30 minutes. Then drain off the water and prepare according to package directions. Then you can eat it plain, which is yummy, or try this easy Thai dessert recipe:

(image found here)

Coconut Milk Sticky Rice With Mangoes

from epicurious.com

3 cups prepared sticky rice

2 cups canned or fresh coconut milk

3/4 cup palm sugar, or substitute brown sugar

1 tsp. salt

ripe mangoes

Prepare sticky rice according to package directions. 

Meanwhile, place the coconut milk in a heavy pot and heat over medium heat until hot. Do not boil. Add the sugar and salt and stir to dissolve completely.

Turn rice out into a bowl and pour 1 cup of the hot coconut milk over; reserve the rest. Stir to mix the liquid into the rice, then let stand for 20 minutes to an hour to allow the flavors to blend.

Serve with sliced mango and a dish of the reserved coconut sauce. Serves 8.

Here's a couple more coconutty recipes that I love: Grilled Coconut Shrimp, Coconut Lime Banana Bread.

And now I'm going to go watch my kids launch their sleds off the snow slide Mark built for them. Only three more months of winter!!

(Winter lasts till June here. I wish I was kidding...)

The chillins

Firstly, how was your Valentine's Day? Hope y'all felt loved. Check it out:

 

Valentine's Day was always my favorite day during elementary school.  I think it's obvious why. How awesome is that giant heart filled with candy and stickers?! I wish I were in 1st grade again.

 

The Big Bang Theory was Mark's valentine to me. :D I've just gotten into this show since I figured out that reruns come on every night at 10:00pm on the CW (although it's a CBS show on Thursdays 8/7c). So Mark surprised me with the first four seasons on DVD!

It is HYSTERICAL.

Probably because I'm a science nerd, Mark's a science nerd/computer geek/video gamer/comic book fan and we're both fantasy/sci-fi geeks. Which makes for comedy GOLD on this show. We watched a couple hours of it last night and we're still giggling about it.

I think Mark was trying to make up for the fact that he spent the past few months slogging us through all the seasons of Battlestar Galactica. (Glad that's over...)

Anyhoo.......I wanted to do an update on the kids, especially Madelyn since she had her 7-year checkup last month. Here's her stats:

Weight: 43 lbs. 8 oz. (15th percentile)

Height: 47.2 inches (37th percentile) 

She is such a skinny beanpole. She wears size 6 but has to have the waist cinched on all her pants or they fall off. Her legs are very long though so some of her pants are veering off into highwater territory. She's still a size 12 shoe (technically still in the toddler shoe section!). She loves to wear her pink Hello Kitty snow boots to school so she can run around at recess. If she wears regular shoes and there's snow on the ground (which there always is) she has to "stay on the tar" and she doesn't like that.

 

She recently got into Nerf guns.

I found this doll at Old Navy a few years ago and immediately bought it because it's her TWIN! She named her "Signey". Madelyn's 2011 Christmas dress came with a matching doll dress. Adorable to see them matching.

 

She wanted me to take this sleeping picture. Very convincing, haha.

 She's still the happy, silly, giggly spunky (exasperating) girl she always was, but now she's getting brainy on us!

She is in reading level "H" in school and every Thursday she brings home a new book from the school library. Nearly every time it's a book about snakes, bugs, or sharks. She wants to be a marine biologist. She can count to 40 in Spanish, for crying out loud. Mark gave her his old iPod Shuffle and she wanted it loaded with Queen, Angels and Airwaves and U2. Stuff like that makes me smile.

Last summer, NOVA had a four part series called Making Stuff (Stronger, Smarter, Cleaner, Smaller) and she loved it. When Wednesday night would roll around and I'd say it was time for NOVA, she'd say, "With David Pogue??!" (As opposed to Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who hosts NOVA scienceNOW.) She adored David Pogue. A six year old!!!

(By the way, this was a really good, entertaining series. You can watch it on Netflix or here on pbs.org.)

Not that we're trying to raise a geek or anything. She can just already tell how awesome it is to be one.

Her school is actually partnering with SUU this next school year and also becoming a STEM school (increased emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). Hopefully we've given her a good head start.

Luke is still having fun being Luke. Messy, climbs on everything, chews on things like a puppy (he even brings you things in his mouth, pants and barks and licks you), steals my chocolate, writes on everything with crayon, plays with sharp implements, loves his "shows", garlic bread, popcorn, Sprite and root beer, eats snow and ice (you come in with snow on your shoes--he'll lick it off!) and is a supreme cuddler.

Since he already knows the alphabet, Madelyn is helping him learn his colors and numbers. He can count to 13 (skipping #5) and then makes up his own numbers for the rest of the teens. He is adorable and I love him so much. I'm hoping that one day he will move past the human tornado stage. Until then I suppose I will embrace the mess...

I ♥ Valentine's Day

The kids and I have been busy getting ready for Valentine's Day tomorrow. Last week they made some valentines:

  

And Saturday I finally sat down with the pile of felt I bought over a month ago to make some heart decorations:

I had two sheets each of red, hot pink, light pink, ivory and dark brown, and just kept cutting and cutting until all the felt was gone. I think this was around 150 hearts of various sizes. Luckily I am fairly proficient at cutting heart shapes--if it had been anything else this project would have been doomed. Seriously.

So then I had to do something with all of them...

 

I had this old wreath I'd made with cupcake liners, but never really liked it (plus I'd made a second one that was better), so I had no qualms about ripping that all off to get back to the wreath form.

Then I hot glued away. Madelyn helped me choose which hearts to put on. I tried to only put glue on one half of each heart so that they weren't completely plastered down. This 12 inch wreath took about 50 hearts to cover.

 

Voila!

 

Is there anything better or more cheery than red and pink hearts??! No. No there is not.

 

Little Miss Cheerleader got to put the wreath on her bedroom door.

I still had a lot of hearts left over.

 

Cue Bluebell, my trusty Kenmore Mini Ultra sewing machine I've had for 8-9 years. The day before, Madelyn was watching something on the laptop stationed behind it, and kept scooting it farther and farther onto the table (without realizing it) and finally pushed my sewing machine right off the edge. There was a huge CRASH and I'm quite certain Bluebell's whole life flashed before her eyes. I nearly had a heart attack.

The top thread guide got bent and there was a dent and scuff here and there, but miraculously she still works. I looked inside and couldn't see anything wrong and oiled it, but now the motor is very stiff and lethargic. AND it chipped the floor where it fell. Siiiiighhh. Such a tragedy!

Anyway, I managed to squeeze out some garlands made from sewing the hearts together, sort of like the dot garlands I made last year. You just feed the hearts through one after the other until you have the length you want. Leave the strings long on either end to have something to hang them with.

It was fun to do different color combinations. Madelyn does not think that brown should be a Valentine color.

 

I kind of like this brown and ivory one, though. Looks good with my aqua wall.

So the living room and Luke's room were decked out, and Madelyn (even though she got the heart wreath for her room) was like, "What about meeeeee??"

I had extra red felt left, so I went ahead and made another garland while watching Downton Abbey last night. Did any of you see it??????? Gah! I am on pins and needles to find out what happens for the Season 2 finale next week!

 

So now Madelyn has hearts on her door, hearts on her window, and streamers on her ceiling from her birthday 6 weeks ago.

It's all so girly and cute and happy looking that it might just stay up year round.

Happy Valentine's Day! ♥